Friday, July 17, 2009

Finish the Sentence...with Matt Adcock

"It's time once again to ask a well-known photographer, instructor or otherwise interesting person the same 10 questions and ask them to Finish the Sentence! This time, the sentences are finished by.... Matt Adcock.

Matt, please Finish the Sentence..."

My favorite photography accessory (lights, modifier, bag, tripod) isLately, I really love our FXtra, by lumiquest. This little Gel holder makes for a quick and dirty organized effort to the creative lighting approach. Also, the old faithful Nikon Sb-28 is a cheap off camera strobe (about $100) that you can find used and abundant. Since we love to throw cameras or flashes in the water The ST-E2 is also handy for focusing in Low light. Lastly, we wouldnt be where we are today without the use of our trusty Pocket Wizards.

I’ve learned the most from...studying up on my competition and actually becoming friends with my competition. I've learned the most by listening and listening often. Also, i'm not afraid to experiment at any wedding. Its been said in the past that you should never experiment at the expense of your client and I couldn't disagree more. There is nothing more exciting to pull out a few tricks or techniques that you have never tried before.... For wedding photographers, the reception is the perfect place for this! Remember though, mimicry isnt flattery! Be sure to throw your own creative twist into the mix.

If I could go anywhere in the world it would be_____ because….New Zealand because I am in love with Lord of the Rings....besides, who doesnt want to go there. But, I will leave that question open to "I will go anywhere in the world my wife wants to go" We really want to travel to "far" out places as she likes to say often. ALthough we have yet to get very far, we do have big plans, for sure! I also love Costa Rica and would LOVE LOVE to go back there because even though this country is TINY, it has so much to offer. Here is some amateur video I shot there last year:

My most-used Photoshop add-on, plugin, action set (etc) isWe really love Viveza mucho.... also, i've been using Kevin Kubota actions for some time now. It seems we always enjoy making new actions by combining and tweaking and making our own adjustments. I'm currently mixing and making new stuff happen weekly actually. We have written a handful of actions that combines and mixes

I love the fact that PhotoshopIs the beef and potatoes behind getting the final imagery to our clients. Seriously, we love editing in LR and we love editing even more with PS. I think sometimes, I would rather touch the image in PS than in LR as I'm always remembering an action that I use or a technique that will get me where I want to go, and PS is the only way to get there. I do know that our studio images benefit from the use of PS and we wouldnt be where we are today without it.

I hate the fact that Photoshopkeeps changing things faster than I can learn them and that my images sometimes get stuck behind the top of the frame of photoshops menu bar, and I need to hit TAB key to close or move the image. Also, I liked the old school tool bar but when images open, they open behind the old school toolbar, and that somehow annoys me. I got used to the new toolbar now :) In addition, LR & PS both allow easy batch processing if you want to add multiple FX or actions to a set of images. I have found this very helpful in some of our stop motion editing. You can find a few recent examples here:

If I could turn back the clock 10 yearsI'd buy a digital camera and likely studio more photojournalism. I would have learned how to dive way way sooner and taken up underwater photography. Oh, I wish I new anything about video and codecs and editing on Final Cut. For sure, this type of training would have boooooosted me into a much higher position today.In 10 yearsI'm going to be retired on the beach sipping margaritas... wait, I do that already... I just need to work on the stop working part. HA HA, joking aside and please don't hate me. Actually, we are building a business model here that will hopefully be paying for my retirement in the future, no doubt. My plan is to have more time to do the work that I like to do vs the work that the clients like me to do.

If I could give one piece of advice it would beKeep your vendors super high on the priority list of people to please. If you start to become so busy that you can't keep up its important that you actually do pinch yourself to say "hey, I can't keep up". Immediately, re evaluate why this is happening and have a round table with yourself, wife, or business partners, colleagues, whoever, and come up with a plan to make things better. You never know what can come of these meetings. I also would like to recommend Kelby Online-Training to anybody out there who is studying techniques and trying to get better. We have trained one of our editing specialists with the tutorials there.

Your readers can find out more about medel Sol photography blog: www.delsolphotography.com/blog (a work in progress). Here you can follow our recent work and tag along on our most recent adventures. Also, a flash photography blog (www.flashflavor.com) geared toward help photographers with their approach to using creative off camera flash lighting techniques. We also take readers photos into consideration for publication and love to discuss anything related to creative wedding photography lighting. I currently am not sponsored or paid to give away my techniques, I just do it out of the goodness in my heart.... what is wrong with me?